AIBU to not lend a dress to a family member?

The girl's parents can rent one affordably from one of the rental sites. They're insured as part of the service. There's no need for your daughter to risk such a treasured possession. She has a right not to put someone else's needs over her own, and tbh I think that's a good life lesson.

If this family are much less well off than you then a (capped!) offer to rent her a dress from a couple of fancy sites would be a nice gesture to reduce the family friction, but no. Not her dress.

I was the poor relation as a kid, btw. All my cousins had much, much more, and much, much nicer, than I did. This would never have occurred to me to ask, far less pressure someone into agreeing when they didn't want to.

My own girl had saved every scrap of money across a year to buy a Doen dress she longed for, and she got it in the Pret-a-Porter sale for £150. No way on earth would I expect her to lend it to anyone - she loves it so much, and it means a lot to her. I want her to grow up feeling that she matters, not that she has to be sacrificial at her own cost. Kind, absolutely. A mug, no.

This girl and her parents aren't being very kind, asking for a loan they could not begin to replace. All it will take to be ruined is a dropped greasy item of food, or a staining spilled drink.

I am a people pleaser in general but in this instance your daughter is saying no to lending her own belongings and that is her right and nobody should be trying to force her to change her mind. She is trying to set her own boundaries and that should be encouraged it is something I wish my own parents had supported me with!

I'm pretty happy to lend & borrow. But, leaving aside the important fact that the other girl's family couldn't and wouldn't replace the dress if damaged, I would refuse on principle if I were being harassed like this.

Not only is it bad manners (and then some), it shows a sense of entitlement to other people's things. This more or less guarantees your daughter won't be getting her dress back!

No is a complete sentence & if you don’t want your DD to get the grief, tell them YOU said absolutely not.

I would only ever lend something I didn’t mind not getting back. People who are relaxed about borrowing stuff are relaxed about accidentally ruining stuff.

That dress is clearly important to your daughter, if she is planning on wearing it again. Letting someone else borrow it makes it less special. Selfish? Yes. But so what?

Why is this relative fixated on wearing an expensive dress they could not afford? There are so many cheap options for clothes these days with Vinted and eBay.

To me it sounds like they want your daughter to not have a special thing, and borrowing it makes it less special and more ordinary? That she is not better than them?

Almost every time I’ve lent something I have regretted it. Either struggling to get it back or a small imperfection. I’m super precious about my stuff. I am with you 100% and good on your daughter for having boundaries. These relatives obviously are mega entitled and needed to hear the word no more as a child.

I would think trying to force someone to lend their items out to you because you couldn’t be bother to get your own and can’t afford to replace it if you do damage it shows a lack of values.

I don’t know about you but I have dresses I’ve had for over a decade that I still wear and they have not gone out of fashion. Unless you’re a fad chaser, many dresses will not go out of style or be irrelevant in a short time.

Upload an image to chat gpt and ask it to find something similar under £50, send them the link.

To over use a phrase…
’NO is a complete sentence’

Just reply ‘NO and we would both appreciate no further discussion on the subject’.

and then if you tried to charge them for the costs to replace the dress its like how could you do or charge etc

My own sister (6 years older) wanted to borrow a beautiful dress years ago that i had bought, I told her no (because she was a little bigger than me and was sadly renowned for drinking too much and I could see it ending badly.) She got the raving hump and didn't speak to me for months but I stuck to my guns. I never regretted it, she came round in the end though! (She's sadly dead now incase I get any nasty comments). So stick to your beliefs family or not.

Asking to borrow something if the other side didn't say ' I can lend it to you sometime if you like it' is peak of rudeness.
Pricetag does not make a dress.
I can easily afford a thousand pounds dress (and own items with this pricetag), yet I got married in an £80 dress from a highstreet department store (discounted price) because I loved how it looked.
Some of my favourite items I cherish for years - I got from tx maxx!!

This family member is not about not being able to afford a dress(as I said I got married in a dress cheaper than an average zara blazer), it's about wearing that particular dress your DD owns.
Just no - say that this is a special dress to her and she doesn't want anyone else wearing it fullstop.

Don’t do it! I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve lent clothes to family and friends and they either come back damaged or don’t come back at all. Any request these days is met with a polite but firm no. If they persist I tell them where I purchased it and that they should maybe look on Vinted or eBay for something similar

how is the Op (and her daughter) going to make them cough up?

The family member daughter is probably 16 years old, should be told to wear something they can afford and not asking for others to lend or handouts. Teaching them in young age to live same standards as they have their earnings is going to help her in future.

Exactly! I was gobsmacked at an earlier poster saying something like, you can afford nice things you should be generous with them! People generally buy luxuries for themselves, not to become a lending library for everyone they know who either cannot afford the same or is too tight to spend the money. That's OK! There are many luxuries in this world I would love to have but cannot afford, so I accept that I cannot have everything that I want. That's a good lesson to teach kids, as well as being kind.

except this lot have asked multiple times.

We bought an expensive prom dress for our daughter, in the understanding she would also wear it a few months later for the wedding of my sister - her aunt. It was never bought as a "disposable" item to be lend to whoever asked for it. It's rather timeless and our daughter has been using it on several occasion. I think every parent should do as they seem fit to, for a prom a simple dress can be very becoming.

‘I’m so sorry, we aren’t lending that dress out because it was so expensive, I know you’ll understand’.

Then forget it and ignore any further messages. I wouldn’t lend anything I couldn’t afford to buy again and I’ve found that once you really say no, people generally don’t ask twice.

You missed out on all the “OP should buy the girl a dress” and “OP should donate money towards a dress…”
No. OP bought the dress for her daughter, a beautiful gift to treasure, not to be lent to any family member with a sob story.
Life is tough and we all have choices, if the dress was damaged then who will pay out for repairs or a new one?
Let’s not forget the tale of the iconic one of a kind dress that was tailor made for Hollywood royalty. The historic dress that was stitched onto a beautiful woman but then was hired by a reality show star with a very voluptuous figure, the dress was given back damaged and was priceless.

Don’t do it! I was put in an awful position (so much relentless pressure) by all of DH’s family to lend my wedding dress to SIL because she essentially left it too late to get her own. (I now realise, many years later, that she is just unutterably tight and had had her eye on it all along). It was returned with stains and sweat patches that dry cleaning didn’t successfully remove (she “forgot” to wear deodorant on her wedding day 🤯). I would never, ever again lend any of my things unless I no longer wanted them. As you say - the kindness they want and demand only goes in their direction.

Stop trolling.

you're teaching your daughter to stand by the boundaries that she sets and that's completely fine.

As for the "it's better to give than receive" brigade.... what utter crap. So who would replace the dress or cough up the £500 if the person ruined it? They've already said they can't afford to buy their own.

We have about 8 evening dresses. Have lent a couple out - came back dirty, and another stretched. No way would I my DD's lend out a £500 dress that they still wanted for their own future use.

Well done to your daughter!!!

Oh, and there's a big 2nd hand market or loan companies. Plus charities that provide dresses for girls struggling.

Go OP’s DD. To be honest this is what’s wrong with the world -“ I can’t afford it but I should be able to use yours”
No fuck off, I’ve worked hard/saved hard or been given a lovely gift why do you think you have any entitlement to it? And then be pissed off when my decision doesn’t go your way? That in itself is a red flag…

So because the OP is nor forcing her daughter to hand over a very expensive, special personal possession that she does not want to loan, she in't teaching her daughter to be kind? We should teach our children to say yes to everything, should we? It's OK to say no sometimes. Especially when people are demanding that we fufill a want and not a need.

Edited to say: Do you not think the family members should be instilling some manners in their offspring by not demanding other people's things, especially things they cannot afford to replace should something happen?